Infographics, dataviz and interactives

Category Archives: Print graphics

About a year ago I move to Hong Kong from Costa Rica, in this crowded city I found many inspiration topics to do graphics, like lighting, statues, languages etc, but one of the biggest changes for me was Asians in self. I admire that many aspects of Asian culture that makes them unique, having that many different things around I was about to get crazy, even this simply every day stuff when I was traveling in the metro, walking in a street or wherever else, in my mind I was asking the same question:

What’s in the Asian face that makes them look Asian?

In all Asia are lots of cultures, ethnic groups with different characteristics, so I not ease to say Asians all together have this or that. So I try to look for major groups to talk about main groups.

The project to geo-reference ethnic groups conducted by Weidmann, Nils B., Jan Ketil Rød, and Lars-Erik Cederman in 2010 was very useful as a start point and to get a better understand of the topic. I use also plastic surgery medical articles to understand the structures and as a complement I collect samples of those major ethnic groups mentioned in the GREG project and Joshua project.

This are the samples of eyes of the major 63 ethnic groups in Asia based in data from GREG & Joshua projects

I use the eye samples to create a graphic measuring the eyelid gap, inclination and length of the eyes based in the same iris size of each sample, the idea was to show that some times the inclination makes look narrower the eye.

Bottom section of the graphic showing from the narrower eyes to the wider gap.

I have to say that the suggestions and support of Marcelo Duhalde in this graphic makes the project a better final product. I believe that show the work and talk without filter is the best to create a better graphic, is a fresh new point of view and will improve your ideas.

Graphic process from sketch to published version

The online version of this graphic was the same information as the print, it have a small variations in the mobile including a few different graphics and shorted storytelling but at the end was just jpg images.

The funny part of this was that this graphics stays for a few days as the most read article of the scmp website and shared more then 10k times.

Print full page version, desktop version and mobile version on the day of publication.

For this project I did the research in free short times in between other projects. I did keep hold this information for about a year awaiting for a chance to work on it and publish because we are just a few in our unit and there are many projects in the way. The production time was about a week, plus an other 10 days of research spread in to short times in a year.

Some time ago while living there in Costa Rica, near my house were these tireless birds pecking lampposts, I always asked myself how could be that these birds will support all that stress on their heads without any problems.
Drill on wood with the peak would be like ourselves we were to take a door and hitting her with the nose to open a hole in it, not to mention the pain it can cause, the head injury is a real factor, but for some reason these bird is not. So I put myself behind the track that make me understand that about the woodpeckers and the reason of because they can do that, and actually there are several studies explained it, there is even information from other peculiarities of this bird that I found wonderful, so, I decided start this infographic with this information.

First draft of the woodpecker infographic

My initial idea was to talk about those particular things in the bird head, starting with the hyoid bone which happens to be one of those secrets of the Woodpeckers, and provide information of the population and its evolution time, but as sought was more particular details that could become new parts.

Process of the main illustration.

I usually work with data and abstractions, but in this case the information is also deserved a more visual and descriptive than quantitative contribution. I start the main illustration at 400% of the size that eventually would use to gain a little more detail in the finish, it was a good idea I thought the beginning… but ended up making the process very slow production, added to this, while in Costa Rica worked full time for La Nación news, also had my students and projects with the university there, and some other professional responsibilities drowned me the time to complete this work.

Up in the picture the original assets from photoshop, down in the picture the final presentation in illustrator.

All that changed suddenly when I left three days journey to a new life in Hong Kong, as it would have very long flights to get here, I found a space to work on this and to conclude what had begun months ago.

I love to do this kind of stuff because there are not tied to the daily work, I do it for the passion about infographics, because data and visual stories fascinate me and because I like to share that wonder that I feel to find complex information and hidden and to bring it to others in a effective visual way of consumption, and also feel that awe for the information that was there before.

Final infographic about the Acorn Woodpecker.

This probably is not the best way to deploy this chart because the difficult to read it, but if you want to see in detail, maybe just click this link to my drive and read it in detail.

I hope the information here is as interesting to you as it was for me, and enjoy the piece as I enjoyed building it for you.

The last of my columns of data analysis published in the print edition of La Nación (Costa Rica). Left, analysis of overtime at the World Cup; accumulates until the first round as the time required for almost three additional games. Right, attendance records in stadiums and empty spaces in each stadium. This space is a weekly publication (every Friday).